G4 - Giving
Writers' Conference

GIVING: A crone keeps giving. Now that her personal responsibilities are fewer, she absolutely must give to others outside her immediate family. There are so many ways to give. I do most of mine through an organization called the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Gwendolyn Hooks

Hannah Harrison

Last Saturday, over 100 people crowded into a room in Chandler, Oklahoma, to talk about writing. Although I had lots of help, the conference was largely my responsibility as the regional advisor of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  The position, a voluntary one, fills with me with extreme exasperation. However, I’ve been RA, as we call it, for thirteen years because it also gives me deep satisfaction.

We have two conferences each year. Spring is our biggest gathering, alternating between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Fall usually finds us asking the First Baptist Church and Reverend Rick Blackwell to let us use the church’s activity room because it is the largest one in town. They have never turned us down, and we appreciate their generosity. Chandler is between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and it is my home town.

This time we got to hear three of our own local writers and three literary agents: Natalie Lakosil, Bradford Literary; Emily Mitchell, Wernick and Pratt Agency; and Danielle Smith, Foreword Literary.  They critiqued manuscripts, spoke about their work, and reviewed query letters, what authors use to get agents interested in their work.. Acquiring a literary agent is an important step in a writer’s career, and our writers were more than a little eager to hear these people. So eager, in fact, that I lived in dread during the last week or so before the meeting. If one of the agents cancelled, would the mob turn ugly? It could happen.  A couple of years ago, another RA, I think she was from Hawaii, said, “No one ever cancels on us.” Surprise, surprise! What does Hawaii have that Oklahoma doesn’t?  Sometimes people call us a fly-over state, and a speaker has to drag his or her bag through what seems like endless airports to get here.  The three agents did just that, and they were great speakers.

Our group learned a lot about getting noticed by an agent from the query letter session, and we had a lot to learn. I was pleased, though, because none of the queries were as bad as one I remember from a few years ago. In that letter, a member ended the query with a list of her work experience then added, “I have spent the last ten years caring for my dead mother.” Puts one in mind of Norman and Mother Bates, doesn’t it?

Three of our own people spoke also. First was Hannah Harrison who proved to be a delight. Extraordinary Jane, written and illustrated by our Hannah, will be published by Dial books in the spring.  That book will be followed by three others. Hannah is pretty extraordinary herself! She looks about fifteen, but she is the mother of a toddler, whose father once carried her into our sessions to be breast fed. It makes me smile to know Hannah got her start through our organization.

Nothing touches me more than our next local author’s latest story. Gwendolyn Hooks is a successful author who is a vital part of our local SCBWI group. It is Gwen’s latest book that excites me most. Vivien Thomas, the Man Who Saved Blue Babies, is an amazing story, and our Gwendolyn is just the person to tell it. During the 1940’s, Vivien Thomas, an African American man without a college degree, perfected the instruments and techniques for the first heart surgery. He stood behind the surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock to advise Blalock during that surgery, saving the first baby ever from the death sentence imposed by tetralogy of Fallot, also known as the blue-baby syndrome. Vivien, who was not allowed to enter the hospital by the front door, got no credit until the ‘60’s.

I would be touched by Gwendolyn’s book in any case, but the fact that my seven-year-old grandson Will was born with tetralogy of Fallot makes me even more moved by the story. Watch for Gwen’s book, published by Lee and Low in the spring of 2015. It will be an award winner!

At times there are those among our aspiring writers who push me to the edge. For instance, 30 of the 91 people who got critiques did not follow directions and had to be contacted at least twice to get things straightened out, some more than twice. One young man sent me three manuscripts instead of one and suggested that I choose the best one, as if I should read 300 manuscripts to make such decisions for everyone. One woman called me while I was having a college reunion at my house. Without inquiring as to whether or not I was busy, she asked, “How many free copies will I get from the publisher when I sell my book?” Turns out she had not written a word of the book! Talk about the cart and the horse.

On the day of the conference, my nerves are shot, leaving me ready to scream at people who invariably email me at the last minute for times and directions instead of looking on their confirmation notices or checking the website. This year I accosted a good friend for messing with the air-conditioning controls. I felt bad for yelling, but imagine a meeting where 100 people decided to adjust the temperature as they chose. I’ve even had people complain about not having the right color bread at lunch.

What gets to me most, however, are the emails that say more or less, “Tell me how to write and sell children’s books.”  Such requests remind me of the first time I did a presentation about being an author.  I had sold some short stories and was working on a novel. My daughter’s fourth-grade teacher asked me to speak on career day.  That afternoon Ginny brought home a big bag of what were supposed to be thank you notes. However, a little girl named Dana had business to conduct. She wrote, “How do you write a book? Tell Ginny, and she can tell me tomorrow at recess.”

Adults often seem to want the same short answer. Learning to write and publish is, of course, a process. The best way to learn to write for children and young adults is to join SCBWI.

I volunteer for that organization because I get more satisfaction than I do exasperation. I get to see people who have cried with discouragement shout for joy when they make their first sale.  I get to see writers like Ginger Reno struggle with a project that I know will be successful if they keep working. There are so many others, some just on the cusp of being sold, like Sharon Martin’s Accordion Girl, an amazing novel in verse. What a thrill for me to see these projects as they begin and as they become books that a child can read and love.

It takes many people to make our organization work, people like Helen Newton, my assistant, and like Darleen Bailey Beard, a successful author, who spent all day on Saturday manning the projector for power-point presentations. We have so many givers in our group.

The day ended with Pati Hailey, one of our amazing writers, leading us in a creative visualization exercise about success. Pati’s visualization exercises have been an important part of our fall conferences for a while. I believe strongly in the power of our own minds to lead us to success, and Pati has developed  her visualizations into an art form.  However, there are so many kinds of success. Giving to members of SCBWI makes me feel successful, no matter the amount of my royalty check, because I always get more back than I give. The best thing I get is friendship. My life is made rich by my friends from SCBWI.